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Ideology, Not Reality, Drives Trump NASA Cuts

President Donald Trump’s first stab at a federal budget, like all such “top-line” documents over past decades, is dead on arrival. Congress will take it as the notional plan that it is, and begin the laborious, highly complex and usually obscure process of balancing the interests its members represent with the public funds available to support them. What comes out the other end probably will bear faint resemblance to Trump’s initial proposal.
The president’s ...

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Lysenkoism has come to America. Science is the AntiChrist and UnAmerican because it does not confirm, worse it is contrary to, Conservative Ideology.

Trofim Lysenko created a "theory" of evolution which included the idea that learned characteristics could be inherited. This suited the ideology Communist Party and Good Old Joe Stalin. For decades biologists who taught anything but the preachings of Comrade Lysenko were banned, persecuted and imprisoned.

It is a matter of political and religious orthodoxy that there is no climate change. Ergo all evidence and research to the contrary must be destroyed.

Welcome to the new world Comrade Conservatives.

p.s. coming soon to a nation near you: "Creationism" and the "truth" of the 6,000 year old Universe revolving around the Earth.

Not disagreeing with your general comment, but you might be interested to know that lately some evolutionary scientists are suggesting that some form of Lysenkoism might contain a grain of truth. It could help explain certain knotty problems which remain unsolved within the standard orthodoxy.

You might not be taking the right lesson from the history of Lysenkoism.

Lysenkoism is a textbook case of science under the control of government that inevitably begins to lean in the direction that government wants it to go.

Governments have much to gain from the climate change issue. Every single solution proposed for human-caused climate change involves a vast increase in the wealth and power accrued to centralized authority, sometimes even on a planetary scale.

So for years now, scientists that delivered the climate results that governments like have been rewarded with grants, publication, and even sometimes fame. Scientists that have come up with anything that casts doubt on those results are not. It's that simple.

Certainly nobody is imprisoning the latter, but some have found a significant dent made in their grants and careers. And yes, a few cases of community persecution have occurred as well.

In a recent issue about Antarctic melting, one scientist produced results with extreme sea level rises. Another scientist produced results with a much less dramatic result. The former scientist appeared on the front page of my local city paper. The other scientist did not.

Just to be clear: there's no climate change "conspiracy." Nobody has to fake results. When the vast majority of climate funding around the world is government money, it's just a matter of natural selection over time that a certain "accepted" viewpoint will tend to be the dominant one.

On a related issue, I've noted that any climate scientist who has even a tiny portion of his funding coming from "suspect" sources like oil companies, instantly has his results dismissed as "corrupted." End of discussion, like tobacco scientists.

Oddly, this standard of conflict of interest is never applied to government-funded scientists, although governments stand to gain billions of dollars and vast power over our lives from the "acceptable" results.

And certainly ravings about creationism are not helpful in the discussion.

The motivators for all sides are money (and its ilk) and sometimes fame. Scientists -- and there are way too few it seems -- who understand evidence-based decision-making know that retrospective data is (inherently) highly prone to bias, both intentional and unintentional. Add money and fame to a thesis that can't be disproven and we are where we are -- chasing the god of anthropogenic climate change in the service of ever-larger government well-populated by the nomenklatura who find it way too easy to come the the uninformed conclusion that all who fail to agree are either stupid or possessed by avarice or both.

Here are the questions that need answering:
1) Are the atmosphere and oceans warming?
2) If so, is man the cause?
3) If so, can we fix it?
4) If so, should we?

There is a paucity of data that goes to any of these questions (even the first considering the complexity of the system including sun cycles and poorly understood effects of clouds) and nearly all the discussion that goes to question 4 is Chicken-little like.

Trump may not understand all this but what he does understand is that the first mission of every governmental bureaucracy is to grow itself. At least it was when I worked inside the Beltway and I see no indication that that has changed. The swamp needs to be drained and what we're seeing on a near-daily basis is that the creatures of the swamp will fight it every step of the way.

Your comment raises ideas worthy of discussion but your somewhat bizarre statement raises doubts: "On a related issue, I've noted that any climate scientist who has even a tiny portion of his funding coming from "suspect" sources like oil companies, instantly has his results dismissed as "corrupted." End of discussion, like tobacco scientists." Tobacco scientists were hired by tobacco companies to raise doubts about legitimate research that pointed to the harms caused by smoking. The book Merchants of Doubt pointed to former "tobacco scientists" who went into climate change denial.
Global phenomena like climate change rely on evidence gathered from tens of thousands of in situ sensors as well as satellite observations, modeling of global phenomenon as well as models of developments at the micro scale. Where the models have not been validated there is a search for better answers that often pushes measurement science to provide the required accuracy of measurements. The weight of evidence cannot be countered by isolated examples although things that disprove the general theory need to be examined, modeled and tested and retested. That process is underway and is consistent with the scientific method.
The evidence is overwhelming that climate change poses a serious threat to industrial civilization. To claim otherwise on the basis of isolated phenomena that do not fit the overwhelming evidence is in the category of creation science and "tobacco science".

"Government money" on climate change issues pales into microscopic insignificance beside "Corporate money" on climate change issues. Does anyone seriously compare the financial ambitions of the EPA to the financial ambitions of the oil industry? Seriously?

EPA can fund scientists, but it can't buy politicians -- or the title "Secretary of State" -- like Exxon/Mobil can.

NASA -- long an organization of truly scientific endeavor -- can't decide what will be studied and what will not, if it's overruled by a President who has the scientific IQ of a banana peel, the personal and professional morals of a New York City con-man, and the need to keep corporate money rolling in to back his Presidency (yes, he's already announced the start of his "re-election campaign.")

The absurdity of climate-change denial, and the denial of human influence -- proven by the obsessive need of conservatives to kill off any inquiry into it, making it "forbidden thought" in the halls of government -- say volumes about the moral depth (or lack of it) of the conservative anti-science movement.

Nowhere is that more evident than in this string of comments, from the traditionally arch-conservative aerospace engineering and business community -- who make their living on the illusion that human technology is always the solution, never the problem.

No. Lysenkoism created a climate in which it became illegal to disagree with the government's favored cronies in science. Like the researcher in the EPA who lost her job last year because she dared to answer Congress's questions about the vital nature of her work on radon, when the Obama administration was shutting it down to use the money for more climate change research.

Let's be absolutely clear here. Climate change has become not only a secular religion, but an intolerant one. Bill Nye "the Science Guy" says that denying climate change ought to be a felony. THAT, Mark, is Lysenkoism. Crack a book on the history of the term, or just use wikipedia.

I have been around for 77 years, I am a hunter and hiker and since retirement have spent weeks outdoors in the middle and southwest. I realize there a great deal of concern about climate change but I think it's more about about the money then the science.

Actually, the well-funded anti-science efforts courtesy of Exxon and other fossil fuel companies is "all about the money". NASA, NOAA, and the science agencies of all of Earth's nations have been just trying to figure out what's going on, and the resultant danger we're placing ourselves in.

Actually, the well-funded anti-science efforts courtesy of Exxon and other fossil fuel companies is "all about the money". NASA, NOAA, and the science agencies of all of Earth's nations have been just trying to figure out what's going on, and the resultant danger we're placing ourselves.

Actually, the well-funded anti-science efforts courtesy of Exxon and other fossil fuel companies is "all about the money". NASA, NOAA, and the science agencies of all of Earth's nations have been just trying to figure out what's going on, and the resultant danger we're placing ourselves.

Unstated in this discussion is the implied risk for the NASA Aeronautics X-plane technology demonstrators. They have been justified as supporting innovation and assuring a competitive edge in a global “green” aviation environment. I hope that AvWeek will remind our community that we need the opportunity to flight test and mature a raft of new technologies that could enable significant improvements in efficiency, noise and emissions for subsonic transports as well as usher in quieter supersonic aircraft. Fuel efficiency and emissions could naturally occur with increased efficiency without being a focal-point.

Private companies are doing this work. There is no reason for NASA to replicate the effort. Just research how many earth observation satellites were launched in the last year. That said, the course correction is too small. NASA needs to be doing research, not spending billions on 60 year old technology or being a jobs program for lazy engineers. Engineers are our future. Put them to productive tasks.

I think it is also 'mission related' as well. Is it really the mission of the National Aeronautics & Space Administration to study earth sciences? I would think anthropogenic effects on the atmosphere, oceans, & land would be more effective headed up by NOAA than NASA. On a side note I really detest the current descriptor of 'Climate Change' for those effects. It is about as 'unscientific' a descriptor as I can imagine. The current trend to attribute all anthrothropogenic effects to one aspect (GHGs) and ignore others (land use change, deforestation, etc) is not helpful in understanding our true effect and what we can do to minimize/compensate for those effects.

I also think that NASA's involvement in that area came about during the period of time that space exploration was being de-emphasized (and I don't remember which admin did that tbh) and they were more or less searching for a mission.

That would have been in the 1990s. The Goddard Institute for Space Science saw a large shift toward earth science, with Michael Mann's "hockey stick" graph (which, to be honest, had a bumpy start because Mann and his co-authors bobbled the statistics used in the MBH98 and MBH99 historical global temperature graphs).

While it's certainly possible to be cynical and say that Barbara Mikulski, GISS's main Congressional sponsor, backed climate change as a way of prioritizing the work done in her home state (Greenbelt, MD), her log-rolling has been equally kind to big-ticket space-based astronomy, with the Webb Space Telescope seeing the kind of cost overruns we generally associate with Lockheed Martin's fighter contracts. The flow of money through GISS isn't just about global warming.

I don't doubt a rise in global temperature is occurring. What I question is the global warming community's willingness to instantly attack the character of anyone who questions the science of global warming. THAT is Lysenkoism, not the act of turning off a few programs related to data acquisition on climatology.

Climate change supporters could do their cause a very large favor by telling Bill Nye to shut up and sit down about his crusade to make climate change skepticism punishable by law. Science stops being science when it's actually against the law to question it.

Good morning Frank
Being non partisan I see the positive and negative of both parties, and anybody who can't see climate change or fossil bones older than six thousand years has their head in a very dark place! On the other hand the social, ideological, and global perspective of the last administration was a fairy tale dream that never was or will ever be! The question is how to survive both forms of lunacy. Space science is a doorway into reality that is always half closed, and rehinged from side to side as administrations change. It appears we are about to step into a dark age even as we reach for the stars. As fish populations decrease around the world, and the oceans rise with the melting of the polar caps mankind appears more interested in social calamity rather than the monitoring of our biospheres dangers. This should not be a partisan issue or subject to personal gains. s442 has a lot of promise as well as a lot of blindness.

I'm not sure why people insist of 'bundling' that set of beliefs (flat earth, creationism, etc) and ascribing them to anyone who expresses the least amount of skepticism regarding the effect of anthroprogenically emitted GHCs. It is irrational to do so. I read many of the 'skeptics' work and I don't know any credible scientists who believe in creationism, Lysenkoism, flat earth, etc. Heck, not even the 'Sky Dragon Slayers' believe in creationism.

It is a classic strategy of the extremist man-made-climate-change-believers to try to discredit realists and those who ask questions, by lumping them with crackpot beliefs. They are vulnerable on the science, so they deflect with personal attacks.

The climate has always changed and will continue to do so. Cycles of Sun activity and variations in Earth orbit/inclination are accepted natural explanations.

What remains a question is how much of these changes can be attributed to emissions from human activities. Radical man-made-climate-change-believers promote the view that human activity is responsible for most of the changes in climate, and say the science is settled...

Realists (not deniers, not skeptics) want to objectively study this question. The IPCC's work is not credible, as it has been co-opted by hard-core believers.

In this context, there is still a place for NASA and other government bodies to do actual, peer-reviewed, science work on climate change. We are certainly not at the point where it is logical to throw hundreds of Billion$ on dubious schemes to fight climate change.

"The climate has always changed and will continue to do so."
The problem is, this mankind is only suited for a certain type of climate and e.g. a change that rises the sea level will cost enormous amounts of money to solve this problem for all the cities located at the sea side.

We are privileged to explore why the climate is changing. So we may can slow down a change no matter what the reason is.

"Cycles of Sun activity and variations in Earth orbit/inclination are accepted natural explanations."
Did you read the article? Solar observing instruments are going to be cancelled by this narrow minded administration, so nobody can tell the truth about sun activities. Variations in earth orbit? - Pardon! When did that happened the last time? 6,000 years ago?

Your thinking reminds me somehow to that kind of thinking:
"Man has no wings. So he should not try to fly!"

MHalblaub, your comments would make more sense if they pointed to research done by either side of the climate change controversy.

The fact is, the International Panel on Climate Change has been spinning this issue as madly as the Koch Brothers are alleged to have. IPCC released "results" of a study on the impact of increasing global temperature on the intensity and number of tropical storms before the study had even finished analyzing the data, much less published the data - causing one of the primary investigators of the study, Dr. Chris Landsea, to resign from IPCC altogether in protest. He then published a report showing the net impact on tropical storm activity of global warming to be much less than IPCC claimed.

I don't doubt the global climate's getting warmer, but I do think doubt itself is an essential part of science.

When we start name-calling and destroying careers (and the climatology funding community has been accused of cutting grant money off from climate change skeptics who have strong credentials in climatology research) because someone's questioning the consensus, how's this different from Galileo's trial by the Inquisition for publishing his findings that the Earth orbits the Sun (as opposed to the consensus favored by the Church that the Sun orbited the Earth)?

Such a one-sided report. It tells us about cuts and cancellations but doesn't mention what's left. Leaves reader thinking Trump is cutting climate-change science out. There are still $millions toward this science and still many other observing satellites. Try to keep your ideology to yourself and be honest reporters, (for a change).

This piece of garbage belongs on a political forum run by liberals. This has no place in this magazine and NASA has no place doing climate research. What is the NOAA for? Talk about ideology! This is a religion to the climate believers and nothing is going to stop their inquisitions.

You're unfamiliar with the history. NASA studying the Earth as one of the planets- what climate science is all about - is the law; it's certainly not a diversion. And it makes sense, since studying Earth as a planet has direct similarities, in instruments, spacecraft, technologies, and analytical models, to studying all the other planets.

As for religion and dogma....it would seem you are the one on the anti-science, anti-evidence, anti-data side, wouldn't it?

davidphuntsmannasagov, climate change proponents are largely responsible for the perception that the idea of climate change is a dogma protected by an intolerant priesthood. Your comments exemplify what I'm talking about.

You were off to a good start by explaining that NASA's Earth Science program is just as valid a use of satellite technology as astronomy is. Your second paragraph is where you went wrong.

Scientific method shouldn't be about name-calling. The best way to make a case for climate change - or any idea - is to persistently and persuasively show the data and evidence supporting it.

Instead, climate change supporters have consistently resorted to attacking skeptics. In doing so, you've done your share to make this about ideology, not science, evidence and data.

Yarbros. Unlike you I've been around for well over 80 years, and, to my admittedly untrained eyes, climate changes seem to be ocurring that are certainly unprecedented in my short life span. Just because I notice this does not make me a piece of garbage or an uninformed liberal. Maybe just an observant individual whose head is out of the sand. And if NOAA hasn't noticed this - more power to those who have.

Yarbros. Unlike you I've been around for well over 80 years, and, to my admittedly untrained eyes, climate changes seem to be ocurring that are certainly unprecedented in my short life span. Just because I notice this does not make me a piece of garbage or an uninformed liberal. Maybe just an observant individual whose head is out of the sand. And if NOAA hasn't noticed this - more power to those who have.

A little innovation and "fantastic vision" has been totally lacking at NASA for a long time. Sadly the NASA education effort has become a bureaucratic edifice based on PC and rigid structure - mostly for show. I do think that it is part of the NASA Charter though. Besides every science mission was directed to all have an educational component run by that mission. So, that part remains ? Kennedy had a mission
that was outlandish when it was proposed - BUT if happened ! We need goals, we need to better explain what is being accomplished so
the public understands that money is NOT wasted in space, but is
providing thousands of jobs and that money goes back into the American Economy right here on the ground- not sent into space !
NASA has done a poor job explaining how all of this affects each of
us, each day ! I'd like to see some vision. However money is not
endless and whatever decision is ever made will affect others and
their programs. No one wants their program cut - but with X # of $
we have to find money somewhere. And if it's a matter of processing
data - perhaps a crowd sourced program which has proven that more
than one pair of eyes is good too !

not1star@aol.com, a few points: Kennedy's vision was not "fantastic". Arguably, by cutting funding for Project Dyna-Soar in favor of conventional staged rockets, the Kennedy administration effectively delayed the development of Space Shuttle-like reusable spacecraft, a decision which could be considered short-sighted, not visionary.

I think you've got a great idea, regarding crowdsourcing as an alternative way of funding work in space. It is certainly more moral to let those of us who view space exploration as vital to reach into our pockets and fund the work ourselves, and free up tax money for work to assure the common defense and welfare of the nation.

This is all about politics and money.
(Preface: as a long time aerospace engineer my career has been mostly about science, engineering being the art of using science to create. I have attended several big-deal climate conferences, seen the models and talked to the people. Politically I am and have always been an independent.)

Most science in this country is done under federal money. Either direct (ex. NOAA, NASA) or by grants (universities, etc).

NOTA BENE:
You don't keep getting money by claiming that all's well. If you want your grant or position you better have something to justify yourself, the louder the better to distinguish yourself from all those others competing for the same dough.

Hence the volume and hand-wringing over climate change.
That's not to say that the climate is not changing - it is. It's measurable.
As a scientist, if it's measurable it's real, as opposed to theory.
But there are many factors involved and not all have been studied well.

Before we start throwing large amounts of money at something - or dismiss it out of hand - we really ought to know its effect.
Studying climate and its effect is a good thing, it advances science.
And we're doing a lot of it.

The current crop of cassandras is all about somebody's money ox being gored.

Good comment....I'm tired of the derogatory "climate-change denier" hurled at people to shut them up. I don't know anyone who really thinks the planetary climate doesn't change. Of course it does. But in the 10 years since I started the following question, NO ONE has given me a satisfactory answer: "If increasing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases results in increasing global average temperatures, please explain the clearly cyclical, sinusoidal, data shown in Antarctic ice cores going back 650,000 years with carbon dioxide concentration LAGGING global average temperature by roughly 1400 years." I suspect that global average temperature and CO2 are linked and the major driving forces include things like long-term solar temperature/flux cycling, the solar system going thru periodic phases of being within a band of interstellar dust (which would reduce solar flux reaching the earth), and who knows what else. But factors like those are not possibly changeable by Terrans, and thus re-ordering US society into more of a centralized command-and-control society ("green is the new red"), under the boot of the UN would have no effect, and so can't be sold as "saving the planet"

leonmck: That is one of the most rational comments I've ever read regarding this subject. And it does seem to me that the phrase "climate change denier" is used today in much the same way that "heretic" was used in a darker age past. They have become so indoctrinated in their belief system that human activity is the primary cause of climate change that anyone who questions their beliefs is simply dismissed as a heretic.

This article claims that Trump's policy actions are based on ideology rather than reality but it is really the other way around, in my opinion. The other side are the ones behaving like religious zealots trying to abolish any science that would cast doubt on their beliefs.

Edit: I thought I'd add that I, for one, am glad to know that the Trump administration will be spending less borrowed Federal money funding "research" into what I consider to be ideology-based pseudoscience.

In 1930 we reached a world population of two billion people. Today we are at seven and a half billion people. Guess what! Its not slowing down, but rising faster! At this point I think it is hopeless. In the paper today it showed the ten top films in theaters, and they were all fantasies. It won't take much longer for all those bubbles to pop!

NASA is been infiltrated by global warming so called scientists pushing fabricated data to secure more funds for their doomsday scenario.
Give us more money other ways you all die.
In the last 8 years NASA 's mission had nothing to do with space exploration.
Back in the 70's was the global cooling.
Back in the 1600's during the little ice age there were no cars or coal burning plants that created the drastic change in temperature.
Global warming is a hoax.

Dolomite, there's strong evidence for global warming. And when you say "In the last 8 years NASA 's mission had nothing to do with space exploration", I really wonder where you were vacationing in that time. We've had plenty of deep-space missions in that time returning plenty of data about the moons of the major planets in the Solar System, and most of what we know about planets outside the Solar System has been learned in that time.

To say that NASA's run by "warmists" is wrong. You're not helping your own case or the credibility of those who don't uncritically accept every idea connected with global warming when you say this sort of thing.

Murky,
there is no evidence of global warming or cooling created by humans.
Have you asked yourself who created the little ice age?
Are you guys for real?
Global warming or global cooling in the 1970's was sold to gullible people by the so called scientists with political twisted ideology. Global warming is a hoax.

Dolomite, you and Leland in Iowa need to go to his corn field and smoke some more wacky weed. Leave the real science to the professionals. Of course there are natural changes in the climate, sometimes severe swings. BUT there is real evidence of underlying climate problems coming from ever increasing population activity, from deforestation to polluting with cars and coal fired plants, that are now percolating to the surface and adding to and or accelerating the natural course changes of climate.

You're underestimating (a) Congress, and when the constituents hurt by some of these cuts talk to their people there, Trump's cuts will go the way of instant Obamacare repeal and (b) American science. NIH's cut is mainly coming from Fogarty Center grants to overseas recipients, so that this doesn't impact American science.

But you're overlooking the broader issue of how Trump negotiates. As a customer, he opens with a low-ball offer. It's what happened on the F-35, on the Air Force One follow-on procurement process, and it's what we're seeing now - a "skinny" budget as a starting point for negotiation.

We ought to (a) let our people in Congress know when we think Trump's wrong, and (b) watch what the back-and-forth between Trump and Congress actually gives us.

Your screed is stale. Since the science is "settled" what more is there to be done? We've got our Panglossian 2C temperature requirement. We have our "social cost of carbon" estimates which use global benefits and violate GAO discount rate rules. We've got the single Yamal dendro proxy which shows warming (up until the point it doesn't and we need to apply the Mann "trick" of splicing the modern thermometer record in place of the proxy without notifying the reader...). We have our CMIP comparisons to the satellite record which show, um, nevermind. And finally, scientists have VOTED. There's a CONSENSUS. And we all know that science is done with polls. It's right there in the Scientific Method and Popper (duh!) and this is why we know that Plate Tectonics isn't real, space is filled with the aether, and H. Pylori doesn't cause stomach ulcers. Even more importantly, it's certified by the government, just like Lysenkoism was. The debate is over!

ARPA-E was just a green crony boondoggle. Good riddance. The wind and solar fanboys are claiming they're competitive with real energy sources now, so prove it without the billions in actual subsidies such as the $0.02 PTC and the 30% ITC.

If anything is going to make the US a 3rd rate scientific dump, it's the progressive theology that you're espousing.

First I wish to repeat I am nonpartisan. The label climate change is just the tip of the iceberg. In California we know there is a huge earthquake in our future that will be more destructive than anything else we have ever seen. The Yellowstone Caldera is a super-volcano that when active will destroy life as we know it in North America, and could send us into another ice age. It is rising at about .6 inches per year, but from 2004 to 2008 in rose almost three inches per year. Are we just to ignore these problems until it’s too late? The 2010 eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland shut down air traffic in Europe for over a week and it has a big brother named Kalta which is ten times bigger and very active. The North Korean mega volcano Mount Paektu has shown new life, and a thousand years ago it “eject large volumes – up to 45 megatons of sulphur into the atmosphere” There are many more volcanos that are active like mount Saint Helena and Vesuvius.
NASA reports that “Scientists understand that Earth's magnetic field has flipped its polarity many times over the millennia. In other words, if you were alive about 800,000 years ago, and facing what we call north with a magnetic compass in your hand, the needle would point to 'south.' This is because a magnetic compass is calibrated based on Earth's poles. The N-S markings of a compass would be 180 degrees wrong if the polarity of today's magnetic field were reversed. Many doomsday theorists have tried to take this natural geological occurrence and suggest it could lead to Earth's destruction. But would there be any dramatic effects?” We have no idea what the effects might be on the Van Allen belt which protects us from Cosmic radiation.
“The Greenland ice sheet Grønlands indlandsis, is a vast body of ice covering 1,710,000 square kilometers (660,000 sq mi), roughly 80% of the surface of Greenland. It is the second largest ice body in the world, after the Antarctic ice sheet. The ice sheet is almost 2,400 kilometers (1,500 mi) long in a north-south direction, and its greatest width is 1,100 kilometers (680 mi) at a latitude of 77°N, near its northern margin. The mean altitude of the ice is 2,135 meters (7,005 ft) The thickness is generally more than 2 km (1.2 mi) and over 3 km (1.9 mi) at its thickest point. It is not the only ice mass of Greenland – isolated glaciers and small ice caps cover between 76,000 and 100,000 square kilometers (29,000 and 39,000 sq mi) around the periphery. If the entire 2,850,000 cubic kilometers (684,000 cu mi) of ice were to melt, it would lead to a global sea level rise of 7.2 m (24 ft).” Wiki
Currently this ice sheet is melting at the highest rate ever recorded. There are a great many other Climate topics such as Ocean pollution and air pollution, I just wanted to broaden the perspective of what NASA really does when they monitor climate change. Mainly through satellites.

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